From Now On
by lostinwriting23
Summary: "Oliver, why have you been going to Central City?" "What?" his head snapped up so fast that he saw stars for a moment. She didn't look up from where her fingers were twisting and releasing the edge of the blanket he'd tucked around her at the other end of the couch, "Oliver. You know what I asked."


I'm not honestly sure where this came from. I just looked up and I was four pages in and then suddenly it was done and now I'm here. Discussions after a stint in the hospital that Oliver isn't quite ready for. This is just one way I kind of imagine it could go.

Anyway, let me know what you think? Does it make sense or is it completely ridiculous? I love constructive criticism so any thoughts you have could be super appreciated!

Hope you're all having a beautiful week!

M

I'm just writing for fun, plain and simple. I don't own any of the characters or whatever.

XXX

From Now On

"Oliver, why have you been going to Central City?"

The question caught him completely off guard. Here he'd been, nose buried in a book (if any good had come of Felicity's injuries, one of them was his rediscovery of just how much he loved to read), trying to plan out what they were going to have for dinner and then-

"What?" his head snapped up so fast that he saw stars for a moment.

She didn't look up from where her fingers were twisting and releasing the edge of the blanket he'd tucked around her at the other end of the couch, "Oliver. You know what I asked."

"I-" he was at an utter loss. _How…_

"Is it because I'm… because I'm assuming the worst right now and the worst if pretty terrible and I don't think you'd do it but I also am hopped up on a lot of pain meds and emotions and stupid stuff like that that makes it seem like, maybe you would go and find someone else since I'm such a trouble now and I can't-" She tried to steel her voice but he could hear the gentle quiver under it, the sheen that had taken over her eyes.

"No!" The thought gutted him and he vaulted off the couch with none of his usual care for jostling her but skidded on his knees until he was level with her and tried to wrest her hands from the blankets but she kept letting them slide away, back into the plush fabric spread across her legs.

No. No, she could not be thinking this. She was his world, no matter how much she could or couldn't move or the fraught state of their possible future family. And this-

"Felicity, I-"

"Oliver," her voice was sharp enough and so brittle that he froze, "Oliver, you need to be so extremely positive of what you're about to tell me and damn sure it's the truth or I'll just-"

"Okay, okay. Felicity," her name was like a prayer as he wrapped his arm around her blanket covered legs, the other creeping up to tuck back a lock of hair behind her ear from where it had fallen from her (his) sloppily done ponytail, "Yes, I've been going to Central City a lot. I've been going to see someone." Which was the absolute wrong way to say that he realized a millisecond too late because the shutters fell behind her eyes, even as they flooded with more tears she was too stubborn to let fall. The air whooshed out of her, audibly and she pulled away from where his hand had come to rest against her cheek.

"I knew it." She was on her tablet and calling the wheelchair to her from across the room before he could draw breath. He was struck for a moment by the shear ridiculousness of the fact that she thought she'd never walk again just because a doctor said so. They had only been out of the hospital for four days and she'd already not only motorized the hospital issue wheelchair (Well. She'd called Curtis for the supplies (without his knowing and before they'd even left the hospital) and then used him to support her upright to do some of it and directed him to do the rest when it all became too much for her) until hers came from the shipping company, but also made it remote controlled. If anyone could overcome paralysis, it was the woman (who had helped make a damn battle/flight suit for Ray-freaking-Palmer) sitting in front of him.

"No, Felicity, wait-"

"Oliver, I really don't want to be be near you right now and-"

"Listen, it's not like that, I'm-"

"Please just move, so I can get myself onto this stupid chair with what little dignity I have left before I say something I'll really regret and-"

"Felicity, listen, will you just hold on a second-"

"Don't you dare tell me to listen right now, Oliver Queen. You have no right-"

"I've been going to see my kid."

It wasn't often that Felicity Smoak was shocked into full silence, but she was fully frozen, fingers stilled on the touch screen, mouth still open in the self-preserving snarl, even the tears she'd been fighting clung in her lower lids.

"This… this wasn't how I wanted to explain this or…" He stopped because her fingernails were digging into his shoulder before sliding up to cover his mouth.

"Just. Shut up. For three seconds. And let me get my head around…"

There was quiet again, only the crackling of the fire and the gentle music he'd put on earlier. She hadn't moved beyond putting her hand over his mouth so he stayed still, watching her face shift from utter heartbreak to shock to something close to anger mixed with confusion.

"Your. Kid?"

Her hand was still firmly pressed over his lips so he nodded and, feeling her hand slacken at the movement, plucked her fingers from his face to weave them between his own.

"Yes, Felicity. My kid."

"I… Have I been missing something for the last… four years? Like I know I get distracted easily sometimes but I'm pretty sure I wasn't distracted enough to miss a whole, tiny human and-"

He chuckled weakly, "No, no you… you wouldn't have missed him." And just the wistful quality his voice took on, thinking of his _kid_ (she still couldn't even wrap her mind around it) made her insides ache and her eyes refill with tears.

"Him? He's a boy? A son? You have a son."

"Yeah," He sighed, "William. He's nine."

"William." The name, a normal, common name for a little boy felt foreign on her tongue. This little person, William, _William,_ was half Oliver and she didn't know the first thing about him. Except that he was-

"Wait. If he's nine, then how-"

"Ah. Well." He turned away from her a little, like he often did when his past came up, chagrinned and a little ashamed at everything his younger self had done, "When… Laurel and I were on a break? Or maybe we weren't and I was just. A dick. I don't remember, I went out with this girl, Samantha a couple times. I was young and-"

"I think I've heard enough about Ollie Queen, billionaire playboy from the Lance sisters and _your_ sister actually to have a pretty clear picture," Felicity mumbled, trying (and only mostly succeeding) to hide her discomfort.

"Yeah. Well. She told me she was pregnant one day and then a couple days later she said she'd lost the baby."

"Oh."

"Yeah. But it turns out, my Mother… Well you know what she was like."

A light bulb went off over Felicity's head and she turned to him, horrified, "Did she pay Samantha off?"

He grunted an affirmative, as always confronted with the mixed emotions that accompanied thoughts of his mother and her fingers pressed back into his, as always, trying to ease him, even now, "And Samantha was young, she was in college I'm pretty sure. And Laurel and I were…"

"Yeah."

"So she took it and ran and."

"And now there's a William." Felicity finished for him.

He nodded. Her fingers were still limp in his but he fidgeted with her ring finger (their engagement ring sat against her sternum on a delicate chain that Laurel had brought her on her first full day of consciousness after a minor panic attack that she couldn't find the ring. Just until she got used to using the chair, she'd promised him, "And then it's never coming off again." Hopefully now she wouldn't change her mind about that all together. _Oh God, please don't change your mind._ )

"Wait," She squeezed his fingers, seemingly without notice, "How did you find out about him?"

"I… when we were in Central City last time, helping Barry and Kendra, I saw them at Jitters and I just-"

"Knew."

"Yeah." He nodded, lamely, "Yeah, and then Barry said something when he talked about going back in time. We were talking in the shed and he said…" he trailed off, remember the look in Barry's eyes, their unintentional burden just adding to the weight of everything that was already happening; fear for his friends in a different way.

"I'm guessing that us from that alternate time line didn't… I'm guessing it didn't go over well, huh?"

"He seemed pretty… no. I don't think we handled it well."

"Yeah, well." Something in her voice made his blood run icy and he pressed closer to the couch as if by being as close to her as he could be, he'd stop her from-

"I'm pretty sure if I wasn't hopped up on drugs or sad and in pain all the time we'd be having a very different conversation." She wouldn't look at him again and the shard of ice was carving its way deeper into his chest. _Please, please no. Please. I know this is a mess but please._

"Oliver, why didn't you just tell me?" And she sounded so unbearably exhausted and hurt that the tears welled in his eyes. Nothing could ever be easy for them, could it?

"I wanted to. So bad. But when I went to talk to Samantha and I said there was only one person I really wanted to talk to about it, she said that I couldn't see William unless I kept him a secret completely." She stared up at him and watched as what she'd been thinking since she asked the question dawned in his eyes, "And I realize now that there's pretty much no way she could have known whether or not I told you."

"Yep, there it is."

There was the shame again, clouding his stormy eyes and even with everything she was feeling, seeing him torn up and upset over the whole ordeal somehow gave her a sense of clarity.

"Look," her hand slid away from his desperately gripping fingers to cradle his cheek in her palm. That alone leeched some of the tension out of him.

"I don't love that you kept this from me. Like. I'm having a lot of flashbacks to Old Oliver and all his terrible habits that exhausted and scared me. But-" she slid her thumb over his mouth as he went to interrupt, smoothing it back and forth over the swell, "But I understand that you were scared. You're a man of your word, which is something I've always loved about you and… after all you've lost, it makes sense that you want to keep that part of your… family safe in whatever way made the most sense at the time. You were scared you were going to lose something you'd just gotten."

He pressed a kiss to her thumb and then moved it away from his lips, pressing his hand over hers, "I wanted to tell you so bad. I wanted to tell you about all the amazing things he can do and how smart and funny and just…" He lost himself in thought about the boy again and Felicity was almost jealous. A true love she might never get to understand. Tears sprung against her eyelids again but she shook them back. _Don't make this about Damian Darhk. Don't let him taint this. Oliver has a kid he's crazy about. Look at his eyes. Focus on that._ Oliver glanced up just as she got her emotions back in check, looking a little sheepish. "He's such a good kid. And there are nine whole years that I just. Missed. And I just feel so guilty and confused and-"

"Hey," she tugged his chin until he looked her in the eye, "That's not your fault. You were a little busy not knowing he existed and fighting for your life on an island and saving this city eight thousand times."

"Yeah, I guess, but. Still. For part of that, I wasn't alone."

Her heart swelled at the last part, "Does he know? That you're his father."

He shook his head, "No. Another one of Samantha's stipulations was that he think I was just a friend of hers for now."

"She's got an awful lot of rules." Felicity couldn't help her automatic dislike of the woman, for more reasons that she cared to admit. _She gave him a kid. You might never get to do that. Maybe he's better off with her._ She shook her head a little. _No. Stop that. He loves_ you. _You'll figure it out._

"She's just… she doesn't want him to get hurt. And seeing as the only version of me she knows was..."  
"Ollie Queen," Felicity inserted, somewhat teasingly, but he grimaced in response.

"Yeah. It makes sense."

"I guess."

They were quiet again, though it was less loaded than before. His knees started to ache from the way he was sitting on the floor, so he turned around, resting his back against the couch and pulling her arm around gently to rest over his heart, turning to run kisses down the inside of her wrist. He'd been doing things like that even more than he used to now. Brushing his lips over her veins, pressing his ear over her heart, laying his arm along her side at night even when he couldn't cuddle up next to her just to feel the steady in and out of her breaths. Waking up in the hospital and seeing his sunken eyes, more prominent cheeks littered with cuts and bruises from places she didn't want to think about him being, the way their family seemed to be on eggshells around him… It was almost more traumatic than the actual attack. For a horrible second, she imagined that she'd dreamed the last couple of years. This was the Oliver who had come back from the island the second time, hopeless, sharp, shattered. But then the look had broken as she twitched the fingers her mother wasn't grasping desperately, in his direction, and then he was at her side, stubble roughing against her cheeks, soothed by the tears that splashed in the wake of his kisses, the choked, reverent promises of love. It had almost been too much. She was pretty sure Laurel and Thea were going to tease her about how much faster the heart monitor had started beeping for the rest of their lives.

But he'd insinuated himself in her so deeply, she couldn't find it in herself to care. The weight of him pressed against the couch in front of her, the heat he seemed to radiate constantly combined with the effects of the pain medication she'd taken forty five minutes ago (Seriously, why did all medication have the side effect listed "drowsy"? Would it kill them to make a non-drowsy version? She had stuff to do, cities to save, companies to run.) was making curling up for a nap sound like the most gorgeous option currently open to her. Judging by the way Oliver's lips had stopped moving, but become a present press against her pulse, he was pretty close to dropping off too, but, there was more to be said.

She roused herself, using her free hand to push her body more upright on the couch, only wincing a little at the pull of her stitches.

"Hey," Oliver turned his head slightly in response, nose skimming along her radius, "Look. I don't want this to be something that hangs over us forever. I'm… I don't know how long it will take me to be okay with you keeping another secret."

"I understand that. And I'm so sorry." His mouth brushed her skin with each word, his hot breath comforting and more arousing than she cared to admit at the moment. _Oh god, we haven't even talked about how we're… Wait. No. Stop there. You can't even move right now. No thinking about sex. Shit, now you're thinking about it. Hmm… Maybe this conversation would be better with Oliver shirtless. Mmm… Dammit Felicity, FOCUS._

She shook her head, dispelling the thoughts, _Later._

"I know you are. But I mean. I'm pretty sure this could have gone a lot worse."

"From what Barry said, I'm pretty sure it did."

"Well. High stress, emotional situation. Other us were bound to say something they regretted."

He chuckled, closing his eyes against her arm, "Yeah. There are worse ways this could have come about."

"It could have not come out at all."

"Felicity." He choked out and she realized how that sounded.

"No, no no no. I. No. I meant. You could have lied to me about… well, all of it. But you didn't."

"I feel like I should feel really guilty for the pride in your voice." He muttered, turning away from her.

"You shouldn't," Her fingers were on his cheek again, turning him toward her, "Thank you, Oliver."

He ducked his head away from her but she continued, "As your fiancée, I'm pissed." He snorted to cover the overwhelming, blinding relief at her use of the word "fiancée."

"As your partner, I'm hurt," She pushed forward before he could get caught up in the guilt, "As a card-carrying member of the abandoned-by-their-father club, I'm proud." She steamrolled him again, "And as someone who loves you, no matter what, I'm happy you've found him. Even though you weren't looking."

There were tears in his eyes as he hauled himself up to press his lips sloppily against hers, one hand pulling the hair tie from her golden locks to bury his fingers there, the other supporting his weight on the couch behind her.

"I love you. So much." Oliver breathed into her, gasping in the "Felicity" smell that had finally returned after disappearing for more than a month at the hospital, "I don't know what I did to deserve you."

"You are a good man, Oliver Queen." She murmured back, holding his forehead against hers with a hand on the back of his head, "I love you too."

XXX

It wasn't until later that night when they were tucked up in bed that he wondered it. The rest of their evening had been quiet, a little stiffer than usual, between dinner and the shows they watched, but that was to be expected. It could have been so much worse.

"Felicity," He whispered, skimming his hand on the path over her torso he'd learned, missing all the tender spots and curling around the inside of her elbow.

"Why are you whispering?" She laughed. The night-time pain pills always made her a little loopier than the others.

"I thought you were asleep."

"Nope." Her hand came up and skimmed (smacked, she didn't really have a ton of motor control at the moment) his cheek, "What's up?"

"How did you know I was going to Central City all the time?"

She gave him a look and he suddenly imagined, with incredible clarity, what exactly it must have been like for Donna Smoak, all those years by herself, having a tiny, sassy, blonde genius running around.

"Oliver. How much time did I spend traveling back and forth between here and Central City after Barry was hurt?"  
He shrugged and grumbled, "I don't know, too much."

She punched him for that one, not that it made a big impact, "Shut up. But it was weeks. And by my second trip, I had memorized the train schedule and how long it would take to get to the train station from different parts of Starling City."

He really, honestly should have seen this coming. This was what he got for falling in love with a genius.

"And, I mean, it doesn't hurt that I work in programming. Recognizing patterns is kind of my thing."

"So what you're saying is, I never had a chance."

"I knew for two weeks before I said anything."

"Why _didn't_ you say anything?" He hummed, turning fully on his side, nestling his cheek further into her hand.

"You're not the only one who's an idiot when they're scared," she mumbled, "I tried to convince myself for a while that it was just a coincidence. But. There were too many times for it not to be."

"I'm sorry I made you doubt anything. I love you more than I can even-" He moved his hands and made multiple awkward noises before just stopping and chuckling, "I don't have the words to explain how much I love you."

"I know." She sighed, "And I love you too. More than I can say."

There was silence, long enough that he thought she'd fallen asleep. Gently, he reached up to make sure she'd removed her glasses. As he rolled away from her to set them on the beside table she spoke though, light and barely conscious.

"We'll be okay. Right? We'll figure it out."

His throat closed up and he moved to hold himself over her, only able to see a sliver of her face from the light pollution beyond their curtains. Her eyes were wide, aware despite the quality of her voice, lips parted and _does she even know how beautiful she is? How amazing? How strong?_

He lowered down and pressed his mouth to hers, trying to say what he couldn't with words. She clutched at his cheeks and nuzzled against his nose when he broke away, breaths sharper than should have been comfortable for her but she didn't seem to be in pain.

"We'll figure it out. Together. From now on. I promise."


End file.
